The Planning Department’s recently completed South Mission Historic Resource Survey of 3,752 individual properties within the roughly 100 block square bounded by 20th Street, Cesar Chavez, Potrero Avenue and Guerrero is up for adoption by San Francisco’s Historic Preservation Committee this week.
The Survey identities 988 potentially historic properties and 13 historic districts as outlined in red above and linked to in detail below:
∙ Shotwell Street Victoriana Historic District
∙ South Mission Avenues and Alleys Historic District
∙ East Mission Florida-to-Hampshire Streets Historic District
∙ Horner’s Addition East Historic District
∙ Gottlieb Knopf Block Historic District
∙ Von Schroeder-Welsh Block Historic District
∙ 23rd Street Shops and Row-Houses Historic District
∙ Alabama Street Pioneers Historic District
∙ Hampshire Street False-Fronts Historic District
∙ Olsen’s Queen Anne Cottages Historic District
∙ Juri Street Historic District
∙ O’Donnell-Fowler Homes Historic District
∙ Orange Alley Stables and Lofts Historic District
The South Mission Historic Resources Survey was conducted in order to provide information on the location and distribution of historic resources within the Eastern Neighborhoods Mission Area Plan for the purposes of long-range policy planning.
The survey also provides information for use in permit processing, environmental review, and making recommendations for official nominations to historic registers.
Those jokers at planning have waaaay to much time on their hands.
How about just fixing up all the zoning they screwed up in the Mission?
What this means to the owners of the properties in this new so called “historic” zone is this:
1. It will become extremely difficult to remodel, alter, or change any component of your building without going thru an exhaustive Historic Resources Survey. This will add months of time to a permit.
2. This will add large dollars in additional fees to any proposed work.
3. This makes San Francisco even more Disneyland like than it is already.
4. This is a waste of time.
I have restored 4 properties that show “high” retention of historic character. 3 of them are in proposed historic districs. They only show high retention becuase they are fully restored.
They wouldn’t have been fully restored if they were in the district at the time. Like noearch said; more time, more money, more outside input= not worth it.
I live close to the ‘orange alley stables and lofts’, which is better known as Grogers Western Store. I once got a tour through here, and am quite honsetly amazed the thing is still standing, not only is it an eyesore, but it is essentially derelict. So now we’ll end up with this being almost impossible to demolish looking for someone to restore the stables and Grogers to it’s former glory. Because no doubt Mission’s hipsters are all about to give up there fixies for brand new horse.
This might be helpful if it went the other way: Convince Planning and local citizens that any work done is contextually appropriate and get a discount on permit fees or flexibility with key variables like height and parking. Given how the Latina community is concentrated in these areas this plan as it stands looks not only inherently discriminatory, but likely to do for these areas what has been done in the past for the Western Addition.
I think we should just start putting plastic over all the buildings, just like my grandma did to her historic 1974 avocodo green velvet chair.
What upsets me the most about these jokers at Planning is they don’t have an ounce of objectivity, this whole process is subjective as hell and is tantamount to private taking of property. God help those who fall under the wrath of these little Nazi’s. Pol Pot would be proud indeed, Aaron Peskin started this mess, if he had his way we would all be communal farmers supporting the “dear leader”. I propose a non-stop flight from San Francisco to Pyongyang, one way tickets for all those who so carelessly let our freedoms vanish one by one in this pot of soon to be boiling water. To all of those who allow this sort of thing go on without any realizing its true ramifications, this is not a one way street, at some point it will come back to bite you, and bite you hard.
I’m wondering if any of the Planners and/or Planning leaders and planning commissioners EVER read some of these comments.
I suspect they are embarrassed to read them.
Are you out there planners, and do you have any response?
I have to say, the more I see these generic, bland odes to bureaucracy that architects and planners are pooping out all over the city, the more I am for preserving these old buildings, even if they are run down. Case in point is the Hugo Hotel- an inspiring building even in its blighted state, soon to be razed and replaced with another boxy bulky styrofoam stucco Wal Mart special. I am not anti- development- I really like One Rincon, Millennium Tower, Infinity, and the new De Young, heck, even the Federal Building, but I’d much rather see these old buildings with soul remain over the garbage (well, I wouldn’t call it that, because even garbage is colorful) ruining our streetscapes- particularly in low density neighborhoods- all across the city. If architects and planning give us more unique, quality buildings, I would be all for razing some old buildings to build anew.
I agree with some of what Tyler is saying, but not all. Case in point: The Hugo Hotel is an eyesore, a very bland, non-descript building, even if it is “older”. I suspect the cost to rehab it and bring it up to seismic code would far exceed the cost of a new building. Most likely the Hugo floor plan/footprint does not lend itself well to new uses for housing or hotel.
I would not completely blame architects for some of the bland boxes being built today. A good deal of the blandness comes from the Planning Dept. and the Planning Commission meddling with design.
This city has plenty of talented architects who can produce new modern works that can stand edge to edge with such good work we see in Amsterdam or Copenhagen, as an example.
Keep the planners out of design and we will see much better work!
Compare SF to Chicago. The architecture in one of these cities is amazing with new and old styles that will last and people actually go to it to see and learn about architecture. But SF has hills….
The reference above to Pol Pot may be misplaced:
http://www.city-journal.org/2009/19_4_otbie-le-corbusier.html
We worry about preserving a relatively small number of “historic” buildings which if not retrofitted and upgraded will collapse in the next quake anyway. Meantime, hundreds of thousands of soft story buildings get little or no attention from the City bureaucracy. The parallel to New Orleans pre-Katrina is incredible. No one is paying attention…
Chicago (where I am tonight) and SF aren’t comparable wrt residential housing. The construction materials, techniques, and longevity are apples and oranges. True, both were destroyed by fire and rebuilt, but there were big changes in architecture between 1871 and 1906. Plus Chicago hasn’t had major earthquake code changes for a long time.
Yowza, me casa es un “Alabama street pioneers historic district”. Sure am glad I already put that garage in! Guess the mission is getting more and more precious every day. At least the value of my my garage should be going up due to this.
“Meantime, hundreds of thousands of soft story buildings”…fact check? you,sir, do not know of what you speak.
“”Meantime, hundreds of thousands of soft story buildings”…fact check? you,sir, do not know of what you speak.”
Agree with anonee here. There are around 360K housing units in SF of which 320-325K are occupied (according to Census Bureau estimates from ACS 2009). Soft-story buildings might be tens of thousands, but not hundreds of thousands, and some of those have been retrofitted.